Christmas Gleaming Bauble Card

Hello, Crafters.

Yesterday I was reminded it’s just six weeks away from the Stampin’ Up! Convention, OnStage Live. It’s a three day event, and is being held in Dortmund in Germany. The choice of venue for demos in the UK is disappointing because it’s not easy to get to. Previous years we’ve been in Brussels or Amsterdam – both of them are a breeze to get to from the UK. On the positive side, it gives hubby and I a short chance to see a corner of Germany we otherwise probably wouldn’t visit.

I’ve decided what I’m doing for my swaps! This time, hubby will be a great help to me because there’s a lot of die-cutting to be done, and he’s a dab hand at using the Big Shot! Unfortunately, I won’t have anyone from my team joining me in Dortmund because it has worked out very expensive with flights, hotels, etc. I’m hoping to meet up with an US demo who now lives in Amsterdam.

Yesterday I was preparing for Sunday’s video. It’s going to be a fancy-fold which I have done before, and I’m using the Christmas Gleaming Stamp Set. I have to admit I have found this stamp set to be a bit of a challenge! One of the images is of two holly leaves and four berries. It’s a great image, lovely to paint with our Stampin’ Blends, and easy to fussy-cut, but I don’t see what the connection is with baubles. Three of the other images in this set are baubles, which have two co-ordinating punches.

As it was already on my desk, I decided to make a card for today using the Christmas Gleaming Stamp Set. I punched one of the tall baubles using the Pretty Peacock and Copper Foil design from the Brightly Gleaming Specialty Designer Series Paper (DSP). The colours in this pack are Mossy Meadow, Pretty Peacock, Night of Navy, and Very Vanilla. On one side of each sheet of DSP, Copper Foil has been incorporated in the design.

I decided to keep my colour scheme for my card as Pretty Peacock and Copper. Using Pretty Peacock Ink, I stamped the bough, which is in the Peaceful Boughs Stamp Set, in the top-left hand corner of my top Very Vanilla layer. To get the copper top for my bauble, I took a strip of  Copper Foil and punched the top section of the bauble. I adhered it in position using Tombow.

Next I tied a small piece of Copper Trim around the neck of the bauble into a bow. I adhered the bauble so it was touching the bough, so it looked as if it was  hanging on there. I went through my stamp sets to find a Christmas sentiment that would fit the space in the bottom right-hand corner! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything that I felt fitted the bill nicely!!

I decided to see what Christmas word dies I have and found MERRY CHRISTMAS. It’s larger than I wanted but it works – it would work even better if MERRY was straight! GRR! The great thing about the words is that I’ve been able to use Copper Foil so it ties everything together! I made another bauble to go inside the card, but instead of tying a bow around the neck, I just wrapped a small piece of Copper Trim.

My day starts with an early visit to Sharon for my nails, then back home to make tomorrow’s video. What are your plans for today? That’s it from me today. I hope you have a great weekend, and I look forward to being back with you tomorrow. In the meantime, happy crafting.

JanB. xx